III. 74. pratham ek jo apai ap IN THE beginning was He alone, sufficient unto Himself: the formless, colourless, and unconditioned Being. Then was there neither beginning, middle, nor end; Then were no eyes, no darkness, no light; Then were no ground, air, nor sky; no fire, water, nor earth; no rivers like the Ganges and the Jumna, no seas, oceans, and waves. Then was neither vice nor virtue; scriptures there were not, as the Vedas and Puranas, nor as the Koran. Kabir ponders in his mind and says, 'Then was there no activity: the Supreme Being remained merged in the unknown depths of His own self.' The Guru neither eats nor drinks, neither lives nor dies: Neither has He form, line, colour, nor vesture. He who has neither caste nor clan nor anything elsehow may I describe His glory? He has neither form nor formlessness, He has no name, He has neither colour nor colourlessness, He has no dwelling-place.
I LOVED THE sandy bank where, in the lonely pools, ducks clamoured and turtles basked in the sun; where, with evening, stray fishing-boats took shelter in the shadow by the tall grass. You loved the wooded bank where shadows were gathered in the arms of the bamboo thickets; where women came with their vessels through the winding lane. The same river flowed between us, singing the same song to both its banks. I listened to it, lying alone on the sand under the stars; and you listened sitting by the edge of the slope in the early morning light. Only the words I heard from it you did not know and the secret it spoke to you was a mystery for ever to me.
